A eight-year-long confrontation between British Columbia natives and Big Oil has come to an end. The natives won. After years of protests, from road blockades in northern British Columbia to “Get the Shell Out” demonstrations in The Netherlands, the Shell Oil Co. has abandoned plans for a huge coal bed methane project in what’s known […]
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A prominent Tennessee legislator is introducing legislation that would respond to school shootings, such as the mass killing in Newtown, Conn., last Friday, by requiring that all schools have on premises an armed staff member of some kind. State Sen. Frank Niceley, a Republican, wants a “resource officer” (i.e. a police officer) or a trained […]
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Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has had a busy 2012 — a movie, a book, the launch of his USC think tank. Now comes the latest — a plum award for his advocacy work on climate change. Schwarzenegger will receive the award Wednesday from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York for his work [...]
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The Vatican has used the Christmas season to issue new rules to Catholic charities across the globe, insisting that all who are permitted to use the word “Catholic” in their titles be in full conformity with church teachings. Issued in the name of Pope Benedict XVI, the rules stem from what John Allen of National […]
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Twelve Democratic women in the U.S. Senate want Republican House counterparts to help break a 220-day impasse and renew the 18-year-old federal Violence Against Women Act, which helps local law enforcement solve and prosecute crimes of violence. The renewal of “VAWA” passed the Senate on a bipartisan 68-31 vote, with provisions expanded to protect undocumented […]
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The National Rifle Association on Tuesday broke its silence over the Newtown, Conn., tragedy just enough to say it would offer “meaningful contributions” aimed at preventing another mass-shooting incident. Faced with a crescendo of calls for gun control in the wake of last week’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in which a gunman armed with [...]
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By CHARLES J. LEWIS President Obama, joined by the entire congressional delegation from Connecticut, today endorsed a new federal ban on assault weapons in the wake of the Newtown school massacre where a 20-year-old man used an assault rifle to murder 20 children and six adults. Obama is “actively supportive” of efforts to reinstate an [...]
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The turbulent politics of the small Whidbey Island town of Langley reached a climax Monday, as Mayor Larry Kwarsick pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor charge, was sentenced to 15 days in jail, and is likely out of his elected office. Under a plea agreement, the veteran Island County official was to receive a suspended […]
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Gov. Chris Gregoire is what politicians call a “lame duck” with less than a month to serve, but she is not ducking a fight over the state’s need for new revenue to pay for its cash-strapped public schools and public colleges and universities. “It is clear that a budget without revenue is unsustainable and it […]
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Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, winning a big hand at a Tea Party meetup, said Monday that school teachers and administrators should be allowed to carry handguns, and that pistol-packing teachers could mean safer schools in the Lone Star state. Persons with concealed weapons permits “should be able to carry your handgun anywhere in the […]
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